Photo: Bill Spivey, 1977 Z28
Site History, News & Updates
Note: Below is a general progression of how things have unfolded on the site over time. Not every modification to the site has been identified.
10/08/2003: Message Board hits 10,000 members.
10/01/2003: With a new found burst
of energy I'm back to actively writing the
"Camaro Restoration Guide", specifically for
2nd gens. This will be the main point for all the sites Camaro information, tying together the
camaro stats, FAQ, information from the message board, and my old parts/how-to area, along with
newly written information and photos.
6/10/2003:
Tragedy - turns into a Miracle.
2 days before we're to leave for Camaros at Carlisle, my whole family is nearly killed in a
head on collision with a truck. While in the ER with my wife & 2 other children, I had just gotten
the word that my other son Dan (who was life flighted to a trauma center in Atlanta) was still
alive. I told my
dad - "please tell my friends I won't be able to attend Carlisle". My dad
posted a notice and
our community pulled together. The response and support overwealmed my family, and touched many
other people as well.
I was able to post updates from the trauma center, including the
"miracles can happen" post.
Lessons learned: Wear your seatbelt. Don't take anything for granted. Let your loved ones know
you love them.
11/25/2002:
The main page has been rewritten to better state what information is available and where to
find it. The primary graphic now randomly displays various members cars.
7/3/2002: Happy Birthday America!!! - Replaced the old chatroom with a more
functional chatroom set up by CoryM. Simply click the link, plug in your message board ID as
your nickname and it should connect you automatically.
4/30/2002: Replaced the old
Photo Gallery & Featured cars with a more
elaborate photo gallery maintained by Earl Voss.
Feb 25, 2002 - 5000 members
7/3/2001: I've been told you can spend weeks (months actually) checking out all the information
available on the site. I'm splitting the various sections up to not only make them look pretty,
but make finding information easier. This is an ongoing project
(aka "under construction"). A lot of the technical information is being
merged into this section from my old parts section.
7/3/2001:
The main page was redesigned to help you find things easier. It should also look nicer when done.
This is a work in progress as the club page absorbs information from the various other sections
of information I have. I'm trying to roll it all into "the club".
May 2001: -
Prominently mentioned in
"Super Chevy" Magazine.
April 16, 2001 - 2500 members
March 2001 - Club t-shirt designed and offered
for sale.
1/15/2001:
The main page was rewritten to help you find things easier.
December 2000:
Wes Stegmiller, the owner of one of the other
premier 2nd Gen Camaro sites tells me he's thinking
of closing down his site so he can focus on important things. Having just crossed that bridge myself
a couple months earlier, I knew what he meant. Rather than let him shut his site down, I tell him
to park it under nastyz28.com thereby preserving it.
October 2000 - Crossroads. The "S" falls off my
chest and I finally realize I can't do everything. I decide it's best to stop the "car parts"
biz and focus on my family and my own personal vehicles.
I quit selling parts when Moementum Camaro agrees to provide discounted parts to everyone (including
me). I turn my half-ass North Georgia Classic Camaro "parts catalog" into the layout for the
Camaro Restoration Guide and begin removing all references to the fact that I used to sell all
sorts of stuff.
I finally realize the Owners Group is becoming a full blown club, and since I started it and am
already at the helm I felt obligated to try and steer my activities toward running the place like
one.
6/29/2000:
In Partnership with
Jim Pace, the #1 GM Performance Parts
authorized center in the United States, we now have an account set up for us to assist us in saving money on
purchases. It's the "MadMike" account. This account applies to most parts: Performance,
Restoration, General Service Items, or whatever is floating in the GM inventory system that you
may need. Please note: Pace already sells a lot of the GM Performance Parts at a severe
discount. The "madmike" account typically will not drop the price on these parts. It typically
clobbers the heck out of regular GM items.
Jim Pace also carries a full line of aftermarket speed & Restoration equipment, including - Edelbrock Performance, Demon Carburetion, BG Fuel Systems, Master Nitrous Works Distributor, Hughes Transmissions & Converters, Hedman Headers, K&N, TD Performance, Painless Wiring Products, Lokar Cables & Brackets, Fluidamper, Moroso, ARP, Proform and Goodmark Restoration Sheetmetal
The MadMike discount applies to these items as well and is typically "pretty decent". (understatement)
You may call them at (888)-748-4655, or send them an email. Mention the "MadMike" account and the purchase is typically discounted.
Specific "package deals" which will directly benefit 2nd Gen Camaro owners are being created - details will follow shortly.
While this account is set up with us in mind, anyone is free to use the account (Vette, Chevelle,
Nova owners - you-who....)
2/29/2000:
Added
Chris Rinehart's mid 10 second street machine as a feature.
2/16/2000:
Updated title page to be more descriptive. Highlighting major features of the group.
Added LayZ's
Camaro Desktop Themes.
Swapmeet Disclaimer.
Special Projects and features page.
Adding a new feature car/tech project, hopefully made Patgizz's
featured Camaro pages more noticable,
offloaded old site news to new page. Added a photo depiction of
BobR's trunk being replaced.
1/6/2000:
Let's surprise the editor this morning. Thanks to lowend, we can say "Hello" to all the folks
who've popped on in due to our
being mentioned in "Car Craft" Magazine. We can also thank lowend
for the speed at which the below mentioned updates are getting done now.
(Look! The emperor has no cloths!)
1/3/2000:
Happy New Year! It's time to give this place a face lift and update some
of the items we've been wanting to add.
Meanwhile
8/28/99:
Some new ideas and pending updates.... specifics to follow 8/24/99:
Patgizz is the "Featured Camaros" Editor.
Please send your pictures and car write ups to him, and he'll post them up. I need to rewrite the CGI program that currently signs up people to automatically forward to horsepower so he can keep the member lists updated. 7/7/99:
Horsepower has greatly taken on the task of updating the
membership files. I also added a page containing
"chat" information, so people can chat in real
time with other folks. I'm going to work on the
"Featured Camaro's" section this week, then
hopefully get back into writing some of the restoration
articles. 3/23/99:
I'm restoring/rebuilding 3 street cars at the moment.
(BTW: I don't do this for a living). I'm trying to write
some articles along the way. I apologize for the
halfa$$ed appearance of some articles that aren't done
yet, but I find this way easy to work on the article. In
addition, I'm getting some help from some folks on some
tech articles, and I/we appriciate it. I/we also
appriciate all the folks hanging out on the message
board. This will (and is) offload a lot of the email I
usually get (about 10 emails a day looking for advice). 3/19/99:
"Help Wanted". $0/hour. Start immediately. Inquire within. Mainly
the FAQ which I haven't touched in
months. There's some boo-boo's in there, and I'm
sure a lot more information can be tossed into
the FAQ. Looking
for some good restoration or performance tech
articles. I'd
like to feature some more cars. If you'd like to
be featured, write up your spec's, email (or
snail mail) me some photos and you'll get a
feature page. If you don't want to wait on Super
Chevy, Hot Rod or Car Craft to get some press,
get your info to me. Any
graphic artists out there, or any graphic artist
wannabe's? Email me for details Finally,
pop on over to the message board and hang out &
contribute if you can. I think the combination of
this newsletter & the message board go a long way
towards fullfilling Rod's goal "to be a source of
information exchange and possibly a parts finder and
swap", for Second Generation Camaro Owners. Feb 1999 - Now that I'm on a host that
allows fancy functions (CGI), I created the message board.
December 1998 -
My site draws too much attention, it's no longer a "personal
webpage". My ISP wants to consider me a commercial site and charge me accordingly.
A new host is found, NASTYZ28.COM is registered.
I split my "car parts" (North Georgia Classic Camaro) stuff out and leave my personal Camaro
information on my ISP's site.
August 20, 1997 - MadMike finally gets sick of
all (5 of) the 4th Gen Camaro sites. Typically, any Camaro information heavily favors the 1st gen
and the newer models and leaves out the Second Generation era. He decides to play around with
web-page coding & starts a personal camaro site to showcase his
1980 Z28, distribute technical
info on the Second Generation Camaro and to peddle some spare car parts he had aquired.
This site is created by a Second Generation Camaro owner - for Second Generation Camaro owners.
Yes, I like all Camaros but I'm not going to run out and trade my 80Z in on a 1996 Z28 and get
all trendy.
As the site grows, I got thrown off Geocities, then thrown out of Hypermart and finally, thrown
off a fairly large, but unstable hosting service. Open up wallet and move to a virtual server.
At this time, all the previous portions of the site are consolidated onto the one location.
North Georgia Classic Camaro (parts) and the Owners group are still 2 separate entities. I still
can't believe I've started a "camaro car club".
Member pages updated and current
More tech articles
Member product reviews
Member discounts on products, save up to "50%" off retail prices on NEW parts
Updated member links list
New & Improved "Chat" list, info extracted
from message board
I could use a hand in updating some items.
Away we go....
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